He said:
Sandy
Following discussion with François, he asked me to inform you that the Minister's office asked the region to put the DEC project on hold for the moment. We have been informed of this request yesterday. According to the region this delay should not jeopardize the project schedule. The region will do a follow-up of the situation.
So what we have here is that the minister's office intervened to say they wanted to put it on hold. They're not yet killing it, but they're putting it on hold. This seems to be the beginnings of ministerial intervention, initiated originally by Claude Drouin and later carried out by Minister Goodale, in 2002. Those seem to be the actions that led to this $4.5 million boondoggle.